The Collected Letters, Volume 19

My dear Mother,—I am well; but busier than ever, with the Printers jingling away at my heels, and a whirl of paper-clippings and confusions
of every sort about my ears!— I will have a few minutes, however, for writing to my good Mother before long. Jane is pretty
well too; getting better as the season gets on. We are still very windy, cold, and clashy [stormy].— I have some thoughts of getting a Horse, as Alick recommends:1 if Jamie were near me, I think I should commission him to buy me one;—but we cannot pack a Dumfries Horse into a bandbox,
and send it by Pickford!2—

I leave this with the Dr, whom I saw last night.3 Perhaps he will add a few words more before sending it off. My blessings with you all.— Keep out of these wild winds and rains, dear Mother!

1. Alexander wrote: “I would by all means provide myself with a horse to ride upon so soon as the weather became warm enough
I always thought you reaped benefits from that exercise and you happily now do not need to live in fear of poverty.”

3. The Carlyles were also visited by Count D'Orsay (1798 or 1801–52; ODNB; see TC to AC, 13 March 1839) and Francis Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850; ODNB; see TC to AC, 26 Jan. 1820 and later vols.) on 13 April, as JWC wrote in her notebook: “To-day, oddly enough, while I was engaged in re-reading Carlyle's ‘Philosophy of Clothes,’
Count d'Orsay walked in. I had not seen him for four or five years. Last time he was as gay in his colours as a humming-bird—blue
satin cravat, blue velvet waistcoat, cream-coloured coat, lined with velvet of the same hue, trousers also of a bright colour,
I forget what; white French gloves, two glorious breast pins attached by a chain, and length enough of gold watch-guard to
have hanged himself in. To-day, in compliment to his five more years, he was all in black and brown—a black satin cravat,
a brown velvet waistcoat, a brown coat, some shades darker than the waistcoat, lined with velvet of its own shade, and almost
black trousers, one breast-pin, a large pear-shaped pearl set into a little cup of diamonds, and only one fold of gold chain
round his neck, tucked together right on the centre of his spacious breast with one magnificent turquoise. Well! that man
understood his trade; if it be but that of dandy, nobody can deny that he is a perfect master of it, that he dresses himself
with consummate skill! A bungler would have made no allowance for five more years at his time of life; but he had the fine
sense to perceive how much better his dress of to-day sets off his slightly enlarged figure and slightly worn complexion,
than the humming-bird colours of five years back would have done. Poor D'Orsay! he was born to have been something better
than even the king of dandies. He did not say nearly so many clever things this time as on the last occasion. His wit, I suppose,
is of the sort that belongs more to animal spirits than to real genius, and his animal spirits seem to have fallen many degrees.
The only thing that fell from him to-day worth remembering was his account of a mask he had seen of Charles Fox [(1749–1806), whig politician] ‘all punched and flattened as if he had slept in a book.’ / Lord Jeffrey came, unexpected, while the Count
was here. What a difference! the prince of critics and the prince of dandies. How washed out the beautiful dandiacal face
looked beside that little clever old man's! The large blue dandiacal eyes, you would have said, had never contemplated anything
more interesting than the reflection of the handsome personage they pertained to in a looking-glass; while the dark penetrating
ones of the other had been taking note of most things in God's universe, even seeing a good way into millstones” (Froude,
LM 1:299–301).

D'Orsay wrote to TC, 30 April, about C. C. F. Greville's book (probably his Past and Present Policy of England Towards Ireland [1845]), which he had sent TC, adding: “I hope that you … advance with Cromwell you must make one Book of the whole.”

4. The address and date are framed at right by a large, right-handed brace.